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More Tales from T&G
Fool for Love is set at a sleazy motel. During one performance a wedding was going on at Taylor-Grady with a loud band blasting rock and roll at the theater. Afterwards audience members commented on how authentic the show was: it even sounded like a cheap motel! Fran also directed The Dresser. The production was fraught with misadventures, and the less said about most of these the better. (Ask Paul Rea about his clown suit sometime when you have an hour or so.) But one was especially memorable. It's half an hour to curtain on opening night when one of the male leads gets my attention by saying with quiet desperation, "Uh, Fran?" I listen closely. "I don't know if there's a sewing machine available or not, but the zipper in my fly has just broken." We grabbed a bunch of safety pins and he went on in the male equivalent of a chastity belt. But at least his fly wasn't open!
A note from Fran: Steve had to carry a sack of props on in the last scene of A Midsummer Night's Dream. He played Quince, a character who becomes mortified by what's going on among the other characters. I recognized Steve's comic genius the night that I looked up and discovered that he had managed to pull the bag not only over his head, but also over about 80% of his body. It looked like a bag with tennis shoes on and got a huge laugh.
Another from John Vance: In December of 1988, we were doing our first musical treatment of the Dickens' classic. I was playing Scrooge and was led into the graveyard to be shown my own tombstone, which of course would be the final vision to shock my sensibilities toward the good. I was then to sing one of the GREAT (or is it GRAVE?) songs of the musical theatre: "Mankind Should Be My Business." Now, the graveyard scene was set in very dim lighting--and all of the tombstones--the "Scrooge" one as well--were made out of cardboard boxes. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Mark Bristol in this production) would lift the shroud off the tombstone; I would see my name; I would realize the truth; I would sing the aforementioned song. So there we were--at the big climactic moment. Mark pulls the shroud off the tombstone. I am of course standing away from it--because we must not block out what we want the audience to see. And lo and behold, there it said--not "Ebenezer Scrooge"--but rather "This Side UP"--the tombstone having been set up backwards. I did a nice moon-walk in front of the tombstone and did the song, hardly able to keep a straight face--which I needn't have been concerned about anyway--since many in the audience allowed their guffaws to provide appropriate harmony to "Mankind Should Be My Business." Of course, I may have sung "Killing a Member of the Set Crew Should Be My Business," but I can't really remember.
Low Moments (Names have been omitted to protect the guilty.) During the years in the Cannery, the company coped with little heat during the winter, no air conditioning during the summer, and leaks. The leaks in some spots were so bad that certain seats could not be sold when rain was predicted or else the patrons in those seats would be soaked. Especially valued were empty two-pound coffee cans because the company used them to focus the stage lights. Once Town and Gown moved into the playhouse, there were occasional reminders of the Cannery. The first play of each season has always had a special opening night, which used to be a black tie affair. One year the members running the box office arrived, he in a tuxedo and she in an evening gown. They checked over the theater, and he went into the restrooms to make sure there were paper towels and that the toilets flushed. Suddenly he ran out in great alarm: the toilet in the ladies' restroom wouldn't stop running and was overflowing. In horror they watched as the water rose, leaking through the wall into the lobby itself. Bravely they battled on. He rolled his trousers up to his knees and she used string to lift her evening gown off the floor. After struggles with plumbing, mops, and a wet-dry vac, they succeeded in restoring the lobby to an appearance of order, but not themselves. As the patrons arrived, beautifully garbed, they were greeted by two members with hiked hems and by a carpet that squelched and squished. There was for many years a much-beloved sofa in the lobby. Whatever it might have been when it was new, it had become grubby and huge and not at all an object anyone would want in the home. Of course, actors loved it, especially when rehearsals ran long and they needed to take a nap. One night after a late rehearsal, the director and stage manager stayed even longer to finish painting the set. Too exhausted to go home, they collapsed on the lobby sofa to steal a few hours of sleep. In the morning the gentle rays of the sun awakened them and they looked through the lobby window to discover that they had an audience: a work crew from the city was gazing in fascination at the paint-spattered pair to see what they'd do next. The entire lighting system failed during a performance of Oliver. How was the company to finish the show? Finally someone sat next to the "scoop," a big floodlight, plugging and unplugging it in a wall socket to provide the actors enough light to complete the show. On an earlier occasion, finishing had been a challenge as well. During Annie Get Your Gun, the curtain stuck tight and wouldn't open for the third act. Finally, everyone who wasn't needed in the last scenes lifted up the edge of the curtain and held it back as far as it would go so the cast could perform the finale. Various animals have graced the Town and Gown stage, including a goat in Mr. Roberts and a dog in Camelot. Dita the dog stole the show in A Midsummer Night's Dream so thoroughly that one performer swore he'd never act with animals again. About a year later, Dita's owners came by the playhouse for the party after a show had opened. Seeing where she was, Dita didn't wait for them to park: she sailed through the open window while the car was still rolling, trotted directly into the lobby, and settled down at the feet of the actor who had spurned her. In Julius Caesar during a tense bit of dialogue between Brutus and Cassius, the actors wondered why the audience kept giggling as they planned the deadly serious assassination of Caesar. While they were plotting downstage, an enormous cockroach was strolling ever so slowly upstage behind them. In The Night of the Iguana, the alcoholic priest has a scene in which he is tied up in a hammock. The actor playing the priest struggled so hard one night that he flipped the hammock over, leaving his nose dangling inches from the stage and leaving everyone else on stage snorting with laughter. During The Haunting of Hill House, an actor was seated downstage center to give a long speech of exposition. Suddenly he realized that he was providing more exposition than he intended: his fly was unzipped. Carefully adjusting his posture, he gallantly kept talking until he found a line on which he could gracefully rise, turn upstage, and fix the problem. One actor in The Nerd was supposed to hide himself on stage during the blackout at the close of the show and then pop up at the very end of the curtain call. Unfortunately, the piece of furniture behind which he hid was not marked with glow tape. When all the other actors had taken their bows, he popped up when he was supposed to, holding a hand to his bloody nose. The following evening the back of the couch was covered with glow tape. During courtroom scenes in The Night of January 16th, audience members may have wondered why the actors playing the attorneys kept saying, "May we approach the bench, Your Honor?" The reason was simple: when they went up to the bench, the actor playing the judge would show them a copy of the script so that they could find out what they were supposed to say next. Terrible telephones have haunted productions. They rarely seem to ring when they're supposed to. Sometimes they're late. If an actor picks up a phone on stage, there's a good chance that it will ring loudly after the receiver's lifted. And sometimes they're early. In one show the fellow in the booth thought he heard the crucial cue and rang the telephone: he was two pages of script too early. A quick-witted actor picked it up, had a brief conversation with the thin air, and hung up to go on with the scene. The fellow in the booth was by now flustered and lost: he tried both to find his place in the script and to rewind the tape of the ringing phone bell. Neither task got accomplished. When the actual cue line came, the phone remained silent. The actor glared at it. Still silent. Cursing in the booth. Silence on stage. The actor strode to the phone, dialed a number; and then handed the phone to the actress who was supposed to answer it. She went through her speech, ending with the line, "This is so-and-so, calling for you!" and handed it back to the actor who had, supposedly, placed the call. When the Ghost-of-Christmas-Yet-to-Come shows a tombstone to Scrooge, the old miser is supposed to see his own name on it and recoil in horror, or respond in song if the company's doing a musical version. Let the actor tell the tale: "The ghost pulls the shroud off the tombstone. I am of course standing away from it, because we must not block out what we want the audience to see. And lo and behold, there it said not ‘Ebenezer Scrooge' but rather ‘This Side UP,' the tombstone having been set up backwards. I did a nice moon-walk in front of the tombstone and did the song, hardly able to keep a straight face, which I needn't have been concerned about anyway, since many in the audience allowed their guffaws to provide accompaniment." |
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Town & Gown Players, Inc. · P.O. Box 565 · Athens, Georgia 30603 Phone: (706)548-3854 · Fax: (none) Celebrating 49 Continuous Years of Community Theater |
